Recovery
Recovery concerns how function and regulation change over time after a disturbance. Sleep, exercise and psychological research use different definitions and measures of recovery.
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At a glance
Regaining capacity after a disturbance.
Recovery concerns how function and regulation change over time after a disturbance. Sleep, exercise and psychological research use different definitions and measures of recovery.
Rest describes an activity or arrangement. Whether recovery has occurred requires examining the relevant changes in function.
Observe what changes
Recovery research asks what happens after demands: to experience, regulation or performance. Work and sport research use different observation windows and outcomes.[1][2]
Employee research makes a further distinction between recovery activities, experiences and states. The Recovery Experience Questionnaire measures detachment, relaxation, mastery and control; these experiences are not direct measurements of restored physiological function.[4][5]
Rest creates an opportunity
Pausing an activity describes an arrangement. Judging recovery requires specifying what is observed. Sleep-restriction experiments illustrate why subjective feelings and performance need not tell the same story.[3]
A recovery-sleep experiment found that sleepiness and an inflammatory measure improved while attention performance did not. A micro-break synthesis likewise reported different results for fatigue and overall performance. Improvement should be named by outcome.[6][7]
Three questions to take into a study
Recovering from what? Which function or experience is being observed? Over what time? These questions help compare studies without assuming that all recovery is one quantity.
Recovery opportunities also depend on the time and organization of work. Reviews follow breaks, evenings, weekends and vacations rather than assuming that all time off has the same function.[8]
References
- Sabine Sonnentag, Charlotte Fritz (2015). Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924
- Michael Kellmann, Maurizio Bertollo, Laurent Bosquet, Michel Brink, Aaron J. Coutts, Rob Duffield, Daniel Erlacher, Shona L. Halson, Anne Hecksteden, Jahan Heidari, K. Wolfgang Kallus, Romain Meeusen, Iñigo Mujika, Claudio Robazza, Sabrina Skorski, Ranel Venter, Jürgen Beckmann (2018). Recovery and Performance in Sport: Consensus Statement. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2017-0759
- Hans P. A. Van Dongen, Greg Maislin, Janet M. Mullington, David F. Dinges (2003). The cumulative cost of additional wakefulness: dose-response effects on neurobehavioral functions and sleep physiology from chronic sleep restriction and total sleep deprivation. Sleep. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/26.2.117
- Laurens Bujold Steed, Brian W. Swider, Sejin Keem, Joseph T. Liu (2021). Leaving Work at Work: A Meta-Analysis on Employee Recovery From Work. Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206319864153
- Sabine Sonnentag, Charlotte Fritz (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204
- Slobodanka Pejovic, Maria Basta, Alexandros N. Vgontzas, Ilia Kritikou, Michele L. Shaffer, Marina Tsaoussoglou, David Stiffler, Zacharias Stefanakis, Edward O. Bixler, George P. Chrousos (2013). Effects of recovery sleep after one work week of mild sleep restriction on interleukin-6 and cortisol secretion and daytime sleepiness and performance. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00301.2013
- Patricia Albulescu, Irina Macsinga, Andrei Rusu, Coralia Sulea, Alexandra Bodnaru, Bogdan Tudor Tulbure (2022). "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460
- Sabine Sonnentag, Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Stacey L. Parker (2022). Recovery from Work: Advancing the Field Toward the Future. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091355
Publication record
TAP-CON-0003 · v0.2 · English
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